


After Deadlock

by Shimadamada



Category: Overwatch (Video Game)
Genre: All character tags aren't final until it shows up in a chapter, Ana is best mom, F/M, King's Row is being bullied by Omnics, M/M, No refunds, Pre-Fall of Overwatch, ana has it figured out though and is still best mom, and all of overwatch stupidly sleeps at the same time ok, and then he's horrified by good old gabe, because jesse is now friends with angela, both jack and gabriel are trying to be "the dad", damn genji calm your shiny ass and stop trying to kill cowboys you villain, everyone's favorite cowboy has a rough ride, he needs healing, hey look its the "jesse was abused by deadlock" thing again hoorayyyy imsorrydontsueme, i accidently made genji seem like both a jealous bitch and an asshole, it doesn't go very well because ana is a snoop, jesse is somewhat afraid of the dark now ok, lena made a lewd joke and it aint stopping there i hope, not even sombras hacks were dank enough to hack it rip, thanks a lot sozbi ur killin me with your shipiness, thanks to a friend now there's a bunch of shipping in this thing oh boy how will this go, there is roster with information on almost everyone from all world known organizations, trying to deal with trauma alone, um my cat died and his spirit possessed me into making a decently violent chapter oops, what kind of military operations crap are you
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-06-17
Updated: 2017-06-29
Packaged: 2018-11-15 02:19:02
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 12
Words: 17,371
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11221230
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Shimadamada/pseuds/Shimadamada
Summary: When Jesse is pulled into Blackwatch, what happens?My mind is untainted by the lore of the majority of Overwatch characters, and I know literally nothing about their pre-fall days, so this is my version of what happens that's unbiased by canonical events.





	1. Chapter 1

“And Jesse McCree.” The man called the teen’s name as the last on a short list of other people. He stands up as anxiety flurries to the edges of his thoughts. The previously named people were going with one of their self-employed lieutenants of Deadlock to go “take back what’s theirs”, which actually meant they were going to slaughter anyone who tried to stop them from destroying and pillaging some defenseless, small town. Again. Jesse McCree was 17 at the time and had been in Deadlock for nearly 10 years, having been forced into it at the age of 9, or 10? He couldn’t quite remember. Any normal 17 year old would be traumatized from witnessing someone being shot down right in front of them, let alone someone dying in front of them (by their own hands). Jesse had watched the life drain from countless faces, the numbers drastically rising as he grew older and as Deadlock expected more out of him. Yes, he himself was horrified that he did this with his very own two hands and all he did was watch them plead before a bullet found its place between their eyes. “At least it’s painless,” Jesse would always say to himself to try and stop the overwhelming tide of guilt that grew with every extra, needless death ticked off the earth from his gun. He never believed it for one second, as one could never forget the fear locked in the eyes of their victim until they slump over with a dead stare. A dead stare that spoke out “Why would you do this to me? Why?”. At least that’s what ran through the teen’s mind every time he struck yet another stranger down.

 

Jesse and the others who had also had their named called followed the lieutenant out of the base. The base was located in a small, almost unheard of town that was only populated by Deadlock. The main entrance to the actual base was hidden among a pile of fake trash in an alley. The trash was glues onto the walls until it looked like a proper trash pile, the door was the same and swung upon from latches on the top of it. The town itself wasn’t near any other civilization of non-Deadlock people, and it resided in a dry, yellow-grassed shrublands with trees splotched around every so often. Because of this, they had to use cars to get to everywhere else, walking was out of the question. The cars were tended to be stolen and beaten down civilian’s cars. They had to take three cars with them this time.

 

Jesse always opted to get in last, much preferring to sit with a window to one of his sides than being sandwiched between two, big, sweaty dudes he would most likely barely know if even at all. Last time he got stuck in a middle seat it wasn’t a pleasant experience, as on either side of him the two men were being generally creepy in any manner possible. Looking back on it, it was probably because of how young Jesse is, being the youngest in Deadlock since his arrival, and they thought their lewd comments to and about him would intimidate him, combined with them constantly pushing and shoving him back and forth between him… 

 

Well, they sure as hell were right.

 

So Jesse impatiently waited for everyone to file their asses into the car before he entered the car as well. He tried his best to completely ignore everyone in the vehicle and instead stared tiredly out the window, watching the veil of night slowly mask the desert. He had always liked to simply stare at the stars, fascinated with how their light could reach them on their little planet Earth from trillions of quadrillions miles away and still be so bright. 

 

He often tried to find a particular constellation, the Ursa Major. One of his few memories of his parents before Deadlock snatched him up was that his father was an astrologist and he taught Jesse about the stars. His father had him try and find a constellation and the first one he found that was an actual, recognized constellation was the Ursa Major. As the years passed, once a month every night he and his dad would go out to look at that very constellation. Now whenever he looked at it he thought maybe his mother and father were looking at it too, thinking of their then little boy before he disappeared as suddenly and quietly as the wind. Later, though still driving, the stars were all shining in the night sky, the Ursa Major not shining as brightly that night as if disapproving what was going to happen.

 

The occasional strips of trees and shrubs soon became more common as the grass evened to a healthy green. The Deadlock’s cars went off the road a little ways to hide them away from direct view of the road. They would be walking to the town so that their getaway would be secure. And so they walked about a mile and some up the road until they saw the town in the distance of their peripheral vision. The egotistical lieutenant had them draw their weapons and spread out to form a curve from the direction they were headed, high point facing the town. The night sky grew cloudy.

 

The lieutenant gave some signals to his “team” and they began to quickly and quietly move through the shadows of the night. The first gunshots rang through the small town as screaming and rising panic erupted from the peaceful night’s disturbance. Jesse finds himself advancing some kid who looked to be 13 or so, backing her up into a wall of neatly trimmed bushes, the gun expertly trained on her every stumbling, shaky movement. He always tells himself not to, but he regretfully makes eye contact with the wide eyes of the kid in front of him, freezing him up for a moment. He forces himself to pull the trigger a moment later, the girl’s body falling to the side, dead eyes trained on him with a cold, glazed stare. The clouds covered the whole night sky, blocking the light from the moon and stars.

 

It hadn’t been to long before he heard the sound of automatic rifles tearing through screams and yells when they were only halfway through. It took another moment to realize the ones being mowed down was his own team. Thinking about how much of a coward he must be right now, he hid himself in a dark, but dead end alleyway. He knew it wasn’t exactly the most tactful thing to do, but he was too startled to think of anything better. So there he sat in a cold, dark alleyway in the middle of the night with a now slight drizzle slowly dampening everything. Jesse does eventually start moving again, though. He sneaks over the wall he had been resting on and down into a back yard. He moves around to the front and looks around for anyone, anyone at all. Nothing, coast is clear.

 

He continues going to his left, climbing over walls and fences rather than blatantly walking down the sidewalk or street. He finds some people talking a few houses down and stops to listen, “Reckon that’s all of them?” a timid voice asks.

 

“I doubt it. They had several more I saw scatter when we first arrived.” A gruff voice replies, his eyes menacingly reflecting the light.

 

Jesse couldn’t see much of the two, just a very, very vague silhouette of where they were standing and they eyes reflections every time they turned their heads. A crack of thunder and burst of lightning granted him a look at them. The first speaker wasn’t much, but the last one who spoke? He was pretty huge, his eyes a sullen gray like the hat upon his head and the rest of his uniform. The man carried not one, but two shotguns. Jesse found that a little strange, but it made the already intimidating man that much more intimidating. No, no longer intimidating but a terrifying force to be reckoned with if on his bad side, in which Jesse was.

 

He moves backwards to go back to trying to get the hell out of this place and perhaps to freedom since everyone else seemed to be dead or ran away long ago. He backs up and the heel of his boot hits an unforgiving bucket that clangs loudly in the otherwise silent night. Both heads of his enemy snap to his direction in a heartbeat, guns pointed into the darkness. Like it had been for Jesse, they could only see his faint silhouette and reflection of his eyes.

 

“Look who thought he could hide!” The second speaker hollers as he shoots one of his shotguns down the alley to scare the other. It certainly worked, as Jesse slipped behind the wall of the building, the bullet scraping his arm as it went past faster than lightning. He yelps and then hisses as he grabs his arm, feeling the warm, red presence start to trickle down his shoulder to his fingers. “Shit..,” Jesse breathlessly mumbles to himself, not entirely sure what he’s supposed to do now. The shoulder that was now rendered useless was the arm he used to aim and shoot.

 

He heard footsteps getting closer and backed away from the edge of the wall as not even a moment later the guy with the shotguns was watching him with hawk-like eyes, the other a few moments behind him. Jesse stared up into his eyes with as much fear as he felt chill from the rather cold drizzle that helped freeze him to the spot in front of the two.

 

The one behind the shotgun gun guy spoke this time “He’s just a kid, Reyes. I think you should at least consider that into whatever you’re going to do with him.” The formerly unintimidating voice says, sounding much more intimidating now that he was defenceless against the two. His fingers tighten around his shoulder as he awaits this “Reyes” guys response.

 

Reyes heavily sighs before answering “I know I just shot you and all, but I have a proposition for you, kid.” He stops for a moment to think about exactly what he was going to say before continuing, “You have three options. The first is you can die like the rest of your scummy friends around here, you could go to jail for the probable rest of your life, or,” He paused again “you could join us in Blackwatch.”

 

A choice he said. A choice? Jesse hadn’t had a choice to make for himself in a long time. It was all orders, “do this”, “do that”, “no, stop doing that” in the Deadlock’s gang. He was unsure of himself and remained quiet for a while. Apparently he remained quiet to long as Reyes encourages him to answer with, “Well? Don’t make me choose for you.”

 

“O-Oh, I, uh,” Jesse awkwardly starts, voice stuttering from clenching his shoulder so hard, “I don’t want to die.” He says in a quieter tone as his eyes drop down to the ground in the midst of his nervousness.

 

“Going to jail forever is killing your “free will”, so joining us you are- Alright come on.” The other guy says, before Reyes can think to say anything, and forcibly drags Jesse hurriedly back down the side of the house. Reyes shot a glare at him from over his shoulder as they passed and then turned around and followed. Jesse clenched his shoulder with inhuman force the whole way to the Blackwatch’s helicopter they must have arrived with, only stopping when Reyes annoyedly informed him “Stop giving your arm a death grip, you’re getting blood all over yourself you ingrate.”

 

Jesse let’s go of his shoulder but keeps it on his arm still. He’s being kidnapped by a strange network of people once again. How charming.


	2. Chapter 2

Jesse McCree was forced to sit next to that Reyes guy to ensure he wouldn’t try anything. He sure as all hell wouldn’t when the very man who tried to blow his arm to bits was sitting right next to him, fixing him with a cold stare from the corner of his eye. Jesse returned the stare but more timidly and much less intimidatingly. The air was tense between the two, but everyone else carried on seemingly blind to their commander and the rogue’s stare off. 

 

Reyes raises one of his hands towards Jesse’s banged up shoulder, stopping his hand mid-air when Jesse flinched away just enough to be visible. He eventually placed his hand around the boy’s arm so he could briefly inspect his shoulder. After the silent exchange Jesse was looking at the floor by his feet and Reyes had wedged his way into the other's conversation until they finally landed at their destination.

 

Before Jesse knew what was happening he was being half pushed, half dragged out of the helicopter, distrust evident on many of the faces around him. Everyone rather quickly dispatched themselves back to whatever their usual lives had going on at the time, leaving Reyes the only one with him as he brought him down the hall. By bringing him down the hall we mean he has his hand in a death grip around the back of the collar to Jesse’s shirt, pushing him down the winding halls of the place. They made a sudden, sharp turn as Reyes forced a door open, startling a woman inside.

 

“O-Oh! Gabriel, I didn’t expect you to be back so-” The lady begins, “-who’s that?” her head tilts to the side, blonde hair moving with it in an almost hypnotizing motion. Jesse admitted to himself in the back of his mind that whoever this was she was quite pretty. Her eyes were a nice shade of blue that reflected the light so they looked like jet blue diamonds sparkling in the sun. Her hair, a nice shade of blonde, slightly darker by its roots, faded to a slightly lighter blonde at the very ends that looked almost white with the large, blinding light from the lamp behind her that pointed down at her desk. She looked like someone who smiled a lot, always trying to be on the optimistic side of things. Jesse could tell all this just from looking at the younger woman for not even five seconds, thanks to Deadlock and wanting to know if he was about to get pounded into the ground half a second before it happened. It usually didn’t work anyways.

 

“This filthy ingrate is one of those Deadlock gang bangers.” Reyes informs the lady, “I gave him a choice of death, prison, or coming with us and Griefen made the choice for him. Evidently you know which it was.”

 

The lady hums in thought for a moment “Why bring him to me instead of Jack first? Because I’m much nicer than he is about these things sometimes?”

 

Reyes slumps a little, his hand, now free from Jesse’s collar, went to the back of his neck “Well- uh, yeah.” He says in slight defeat that she guessed one of his motives, “But he’s also here because I kinda shot his shoulder and it bled all over him and all that jazz.” He finishes with waving his hands in a meaningless gesture.

 

“Oh! Well that isn’t good, now is it? Come here- what’s your name?” She asks them, giving Jesse a questioning look.

 

“U-Uh,” Jesse stutters at first “Jesse! I’m Jesse McCree.”

 

The lady barely manages to hold in a laugh at his timidness, “I’m Angela Ziegler, Dr. Ziegler to most. Now come over here so I can look at your shoulder.”

 

Doctor? Jesse quickly examines the room and instantly notices they were in a clinic of some sort, so this Angela girl must be the doctor. Obviously. He walks over to her, stopping a foot or two away from her chair she was sitting in. She places a hand on his arm and stands up so she’s more level with his shoulder than previously. Placing the other hand above the other one, and where the injury was, she gently prodded at the gash, making Jesse’s breath hitch as he bit his tongue, trying not to seem like a weak, little baby in front of the two.

 

“Your shoulder will be fine in time, but you shouldn’t put much strain on it. The less the better. I’ll clean it and bandage it up, then I’ll put you in a sling for about..,” She places a finger over her mouth in thought, “a week and a half? It’ll still need to not be used much though. Whatever the commanders are going to do with you will have to wait until you’re healed up.” The doctor kept rambling to herself as she performed her plan she had just mentioned. The next few minutes were subpar as she finished wrapping a thin bandage around his shoulder. “..there we go!” The doctor exclaims, clapping her hands together with a bright smile, while cutting off her own rambling mid-sentence.

 

Reyes stops impatiently tapping his foot and approaches the two “Now, Gabriel.” Angela starts with a commanding tone “I don’t want you roughhousing, pushing, shoving, fighting, hitting, wrestling, or fist fighting with him, alright? Or else you could do some real damage to his shoulder, and we don’t want that, now do we?”

 

Gabriel grumbles to himself “No..,”

 

“Good! Now get going, Jack should probably know a Deadlock kid is here with us for a bit!” She says enthusiastically as she ushers them out the door. Once she had closed the door again, Jesse timidly asks Reyes, “Is she usually like that?”

 

The older sighs “Yes. She’s chipper, but sometimes it kills you. There’s another one who’s even more enthusiastic than Angela is and it’s to the point of being downright annoying.” Reyes replies, allowing a non-toxic conversation to be had.

 

“And who’s that?” Jesse asks curiously.

 

“Lena Oxton. She runs around like a kid on a sugar high. She’ll be in front of you one moment and then just be gone.” Gabriel says, shrugging his shoulders lazily as they walked down the halls.

 

The conversation didn’t last long, as it died after Gabriel’s response. They stopped in front of another door, except this time the older knocks on it instead of busting it open with his foot. Someone from inside calls out “Who is it?”

 

“Unlock the goddamn door, Morrison.” was Reyes’s reply, ignoring the others question.

 

The sound of shuffling footsteps was heard before the door swung open to reveal a man around the age of Reyes. He also had blue eyes, blond hair, but it wasn’t as inviting as Angela had been. More intimidating if you weren’t on a good stance with him.

 

“Who’s this kid?” Morrison asks, meeting Gabriel’s eyes with a confused look.

 

“This is some kid I’ve been forced to salvage from Deadlock thanks to none other than Griefen. He says he’s called Jesse McCree.” Gabriel replies, not caring enough to repeat the story a second time it seemed.

 

The other’s eyes flicked to Jesse now, briefly studying him before opening the door wider and stepping aside, “Let’s talk in here.” He closes the door after the other two had stepped in, and walked back around his desk, sitting in the chair a moment later. Reyes already had his feet propped up onto the desk, his arms folded over his chest.

 

“Alright Jesse,” Morrison starts, his gaze shifting to the boy as he spoke his name “You must know you’ve killed hundreds of innocent people by now, correct?”

 

Jesse’s mouth opened but nothing came out so he shut it again. Morrison takes that as a ‘yes’ and continues “If you truly don’t want to go to prison for all the mayhem you’ve helped cause, tell me.” He leans forwards “Why should Gabriel and I let you join Blackwatch? How can we trust you won’t shoot us down from the inside-out?”

 

The teen was silent for a while, how would someone ever be able to remotely prove anything they said in this situation? His eyes had involuntarily widened, just enough to show his discomfort to the other two as his gaze slowly shifted to the bottom left corner of his vision to stare at the suddenly interesting floor. He eventually answers with “Ya can’t.” he’s still staring at the floor “Ya can’t really trust nothing I say, can ya?”

 

The other two were silent before Morrison spoke again “That’s the sad truth of it. What we can do is put you through a test of sorts to see just how trustworthy you’ll be. How about we give you four months here, and if you do anything in those four months that greatly shows we can’t trust you, it’s off to the slammer, kid.”

 

“W-Wait, really? You’re lettin’ me stay here?” Jesse asked, not expecting this outcome, especially so quickly.

 

“For four months. Beyond that is up to your behavior. Now then,” Morrison turns around in his swivel chair to the computer, clicking a few things and then began typing something in “I’ll have Blackwatch’s commander Reyes here train you personally so he can monitor you.”

 

Oh, well that’s no fun. This Gabriel guy doesn’t seem like much fun.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Oh look, I took a huge paragraph to describe Angela and barely a sentence to describe Jack. Don't sue me please.


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A bit of a longer chapter and meeting the rest of the current Overwatch team

Having nothing to do for a week was pretty boring. Jesse couldn’t do much with his uninjured arm, as it wasn’t his dominant one. He had been given a room by Reyes and was currently sitting in there, though he wasn’t alone. He had met another member of Blackwatch who was quite peculiar. At first glimpse he thought it was an Omnic, but then he realized it wasn’t. Well, not entirely. The cyborg hadn’t said much about why he was mostly Omnic and why the human left of him was so scarred. Jesse’s first guess was he may have been in some kind of explosion? Maybe? The most he knew was the cyborg’s name was Genji and that he worked with Blackwatch. That was it. Genji always seemed upset about something, he was quick to jump to conclusions, not very friendly, and aggressive all around, especially towards one of the other Overwatch members. Jesse didn’t know who this was but they had some sort of silent rivalry between them.

 

Genji was leaning against the door frame to Jesse’s probably temporary room, staring straight ahead so he both could observe Jesse’s every movement and see if anyone was coming down the hallway. Jesse was kicking his feet back and forth, eyes glancing around the room with no real purpose. He had been given the standard gray-black “uniforms” the rest of Blackwatch, except Genji, seemed to have, and he still had his black cowboy hat atop his head.

 

“For a cowboy,” Genji starts “you’re not very sharp.”

 

“Sharp? What do you mean ‘sharp’?” Jesse questions, not following.

 

“Aren’t cowboys supposed to have deadly accuracy with their guns? Observing their opponents or whatever. Those duels you see on the tele where they spin around and whoever doesn’t shoot first is pretty much dead meat. I guess I wouldn’t know, I’m not a cowboy after all, I-” the cyborg cuts himself off all together, his eyebrows drawing together before he relaxes as he was before.

 

“You’ve never seen me shoot nothin’, how would you know?” Jesse counters, on the verge of sounding offended by the strange cyborg.

 

“You have the attention span of a two year old.” He replies flatly, glancing at Jesse in a taunting manner. He notices after a second of uncertainty that he was intentionally trying to rile him up. Get him in trouble so he’d go to jail before his arm was even healed by the standards of Angela. What a prick. Jesse’s response is a mix between a growl and sigh as he tips his hat so it was over his face. He wished his visitor would find something better to do and leave him alone.

 

He stays like that for a while, unmoving, until he hears Genji growling something and walking away. “Kid, what’s with the hat? Trying to hide from that asshat? ‘Cause it ain’t working.” Gabriel’s unenthusiastic voice asks him. Jesse drops his hat into his lap before, not replying. “He’s always trying to start fights.” Reyes informs him “Ever since he arrived and Angela had to build him that cybernetic body he’s been a complete douche bag to everyone and plays with thin ice when he’s around someone of higher stature. Hell, if it weren’t against the rules I’d let you smash your gun into his stupid face, see how he likes a taste of his own medicine.”

 

Jesse stared at Reyes as if he had gone insane with the last few sentences, his mouth slightly agape in disbelief that he’d say something like that about his own teammate. Reyes scoffs and then continues “You should meet more people than him. He’s got some issues.”

 

The boy nods his head to show he understood him and asks “Surely you didn’t come here just to “rescue me” from Genji, right?”

 

“No, and about that.” Reyes says, his tone lighter than before “Angela is trying to get as many head agents as she can into the dining room at once for dinner so they can all meet you or whatever.”

 

“Oh,” Jesse mumbles, starting to feel sick to his stomach at the thought of who knows how many people that were probably only there to see him. The boy whose entire life got fucked over and wasn’t asked any questions about what he thought about it.

 

“So she’s sent me to bring you there.” Reyes says as Jesse stands up to follow him, sighing a little as they went down the hall.

 

Entering the room with Gabriel, everyone’s eyes turned over to him to see who was there. Some were happy like Angela had been, some bored like Genji, others like when he first “met” Gabriel. It was slightly overwhelming to see so many of them, they’re the ones who represented Overwatch, the ones who were the strongest in mind or power among the entirety of this place.

 

He subconsciously went to sit by Angela, the only one he had remotely felt safe around so far. She was on his left and he didn’t know the one on his right, not that he really knew much of anyone else there anyways. The man sitting next to him was huge and older than Gabriel and Jack, but not too old. He had a huge, smother smile on his face as he stared down at Jesse’s slightly frightened face. Why were so many people here just so  _ huge _ ? If he thought Gabriel was, this man beat him one to twenty.

 

“Hello freund! I am Reinhardt!” The man greets him boisterously “You must be the new guy, welcome!” Gabriel was right, some of these people’s enthusiasm was overbearing. But not really knowing anyone else he was grateful for the older man’s welcomeness towards him.

 

“Yeah, the name’s Jesse McCree.” He informs the other, tipping his hat slightly in greeting.

 

“What’re you supposed to be?” The man sitting across from him asks, his eyes narrowed in annoyance. This guy, unlike everyone else he had met, appeared to be shorter than himself. He reminded him of Genji with the annoyance that was radiating off him with no real cause Jesse knew of.

 

“Ooh! Do ya like cowboys? Pew, pew!” A young woman says, suddenly appearing on the table between the two and shooting finger guns at everyone around her (and startling everyone nearby, may I add). 

 

Reyes growls at her “Get off the table, woman. You’re not a preschooler.” She complies by slipping herself into the seat next to Hanzo, in front of Angela, so she could try and start a conversation with Jesse. There were just too many new faces he’d not once seen, too many personalities he didn’t understand yet, and it was all slowly overwhelming Jesse, but he had to at least acknowledge how many people didn’t seem to care about where he came from like Reyes did. He was going to be as friendly as he possibly could.

 

The speedy woman repeats her question to bring it back up to topic “Ya like cowboys? Nice hat!”

 

“Well, I guess so. I’ve always just been called “The Cowboy” my whole life so I adopted it?” He wasn’t even sure himself. He had been given the nickname he had mentioned by Deadlock and in the terms of Deadlock it was one of the most lewd nicknames they had given any of the underdogs as they called them. The ones who had no power over anything and had to do everything they were told. He scrapped that thought before it could try and dampen everyone else’s seemingly happy mood.

 

“Tha’s a cool nickname! I’m Lena!” She vigorously replies, sticking her hand out for Jesse to shake, which he returns the gesture. Lena then points around the table, being the most helpful person to Jesse so far by telling him everyone’s names who were currently there, “Tha’s Angela who ya must have met by now! And tha’s Reinhardt on your other side. Beside him, tha short guy is Torbjorn and across from him is Ana! Beside Ana and I is Hanzo and on my other side is Genji and Jack. Gabriel’s in the doorway with another new recruit, Mei!” Lena finally stops to breathe after waving her arm around at everyone she named.

 

Jesse stayed quiet for a moment before simply shrugging his shoulders, not knowing what else to do in response to all that. Lena didn’t say anything about if she noticed, instead starting to chatter away again “Do ya fight like a cowboy too? Or is it only your get up? Ooh! You’ll never guess what I can do, watch this!” Lena suddenly flashed forwards out of her seat and reappeared behind everyone on the other side of the table, flashed over to Reyes and Mei, grabbed Mei’s glasses off her face, and then appears back in her seat while wearing the other girl’s glasses. Mei was left blinking in confusion while Jesse stared at her like she was an exhibit at a freakshow. Mei seemed just as bewildered, as she was pretty new as well.

 

“I can jump time forwards an’ back. A bit a’ both is always good!” She concludes, haphazardously throwing Mei’s glasses back to her from all the way at the table, calling out to Mei “Sorry ‘bout that, ‘luv!”

 

Angela had hidden her face in her hands, sighing quietly to herself after Lena’s stunt which riled up who Jesse believed was Ana. She spoke in a commanding voice to Lena “Lena!” She barks, startling the younger woman from her shenanigans for the time being “Stop that this instant. You should only use those on the field, not at the dinner table! Plus you’re freaking those two out, just look at them!”

 

Lena sighs dramatically loud, her face now on the table “Okay, okay, Ana! I’m sorry you two, I just get really excited sometimes.”

 

“I think you should take a time out from here, calm yourself, and go find Winston since he’s not here still.” Angela suggests. Lena nods her head enthusiastically and runs off down the hall to find this Winston guy.

 

“Winston?” Jesse questions, not having heard that name until now.

 

“Oh! Here’s a warning to you, he’s a gorilla, but he’s nicer than he may look so don’t worry. He’s a gentle giant!” Angela informs him, clapping her hands together a few times. Angela’s smile was infectious, even when Jesse saw the death glare from Genji.

 

Jesse decides to turn his attention to the only other conversation currently going on with the three older Overwatch agents all to his right. Reinhardt was laughing, his hand hitting the table a couple times, his voice loud enough that he could feel it within him as if it were really loud music. The shorter man on Reinhardt’s other side was chuckling as well and Ana was shaking her head with a grin on her face. For being the leaders and symbols of such deadly fighters they sure laughed a lot.

 

Reinhardt saw Jesse watching them, well, more specifically him, with a confused stare “Torbjorn tells the best jokes!” He informs the other.

 

“A joke, huh? What’d he say?” Jesse asked the behemoth, faintly amused.

 

“He said, ‘What do ye call a fish with no eyes? A fshh!’” Reinhardt says, mimicking Torbjorn’s voice, and then starts to laugh at the terrible joke again.

 

“You won’t believe this but that giant man laughing at an overused joke is an unbreakable wall of steel in combat.” Angela says, leaning over to whisper in Jesse’s ear as to not interrupt Reinhardt’s child-like behavior. Jesse laughs a little.

 

After Reinhardt calmed down, Ana started talking to him, changing the subject of whatever their conversation had been before “So, Jesse is it?” Jesse nods his head in confirmation and she continues “Gabriel says you were brought here straight from a Deadlock raid? Aren’t you too young for that kind of thing?”

 

Jesse makes a note in his head that everyone’s eyes were on him now “W-Well, uh, it’s a long story and I don’t want ta bore y’all to death.” He replies, tripping over his words a little.

 

“Oh, a wee little story time never hurt no one!” Torbjorn’s voice speaks up. He still hadn’t properly seen Torbjorn who he had to assume was behind Reinhardt.

 

Jesse clears his throat as he thought what he should allow everyone to know or not. He barely knew them after all, so unless he had a close friend none of them would come close to knowing the flat out truth of everything. Jesse felt sick again as he recalled memories to piece together what he would say.

 

“Well, ta start in the beginnin’ my mom was an accountant and my dad was an astrologist. My dad and I would spend hours a night jus’ ta look at the stars, which is the thing I remember most about ‘em. Uh, I’m not entirely sure when or what age but one day I was wanderin’ aroun’ outside and then all of a sudden I’m asleep or somethin’, ‘cause I wake up with Deadlock, though I not knowin’ them at that time. They forced me to learn ta do what they did and- well the rest is self explanatory, right?”

 

There was an awkward moment of silence and either confused, apologetic, or sympathetic glances before Jack spoke up, “Then that much alone should drive you to be a better person, the person you should have been.”

 

As if the gods sensed the awkward air in the air they sent a distraction. Lena zips into the room with a victorious call of “I found ‘em!” A moment later a gorilla in full body, plated armor steps into the room, using a finger to push glasses back up to the bridge of his.., nose? Snout?

 

“Oh, uh, hello. Sorry for being late, I was discussing something with Athena about a few new possible threats and allies.” The gorilla’s voice was deep, but had kindness to it. He really was a friendly giant.

 

“And now everyone’s here! Where’s the grub, I’m starvin’!” Lena shouts enthusiastically, sitting back down between Genji and Hanzo. Ana stands up, Angela following to help her, and they both walk into what Jesse believed was a kitchen. Winston had sat himself down in front of Gabriel who was now beside Jack, and looking bored as ever. Mei sat at the head of the end of the table on their side. There was only one empty seat, which was the seat at the head of the other side of the table, and it struck Jesse as slightly odd and out of place that there was only one chair without someone to sit in it. 

 

Angela comes back out first, Lena zipping over to her side, out of eagerness, to help set the food down. Ana reappears a moment later and within the next minute or two everyone was seated again. 


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> And now a shorter chapter because it was a more important scene that I couldn't figure out how to connect to the scenes I planned to put before and after it! I'm currently in the midst of writing the next chapter too, so that'll be done today as well.

It was Jesse’s third day and he thought it safe to say he had befriended Angela, Lena, Ana, and Reinhardt so far. He hadn’t talked to much of anyone else since that big get together two days prior. Right now Jesse was in what they called “The living room” (which Jesse found odd because they were in a military style headquarters yet they had an entirely different wing that made it look like a giant house instead.) Lena had coaxed Jesse into playing Uno with her, Reinhardt joining them before they had even found the deck of cards in the first place.

 

“You know,” Jesse starts “when I was dragged here by Gabriel I’d originally thought everyone was gonna to hate me or somethin’.”

 

“Well you’re very wrong with that one, mista!” Lena says a bit loudly “I mean, afta all, everyone of us that represent Ovahwatch has killed at least someone, ya know? Whether it man or machine, mostly machine right now though. Plus ya said ya didn’t want ta do any of that Deadlock stuff and tha’s how ya got raised, so now ya get good ol’ Lena to teach ya how to be human again, ‘cause Deadlock certainly ain’t human!” Lena concludes as she triumphantly places the deck of Uno cards on the table.

 

“So how many cards was it again..?” Reinhardt trails off in confusion, as he hasn’t played Uno in quite some time.

 

“I think it’s seven, yeah? Seven should do!” Lena pipes up, almost jumping up and down in her seat. This was all excitement to be playing Uno.

 

Reinhardt deals the cards, triumphantly placing the remaining cards in the middle of the table with a quiet “thunk”.

 

They played for a good while without any winners. Most of that time was Reinhardt being over-strategical about the game and taking forever to weigh all his options with Lena giggling at him in the background of his thoughts. It was during one of those turns that the seemingly unfriendly archer, that Jesse vaguely remembered his name to be Hanzo, walked by with an equally angry Genji tailing him.

 

“Hey, Lena?” Jesse asks, keeping his eyes on the now empty doorway to the hall.

 

“Yeah?”

 

“What’s with Genji always following that other guy around? He only ever makes him mad.”

 

“Oh, that’s Hanzo he’s following. Hanzo’s his brother! But no one knows why they don’t get along, like, at all. Ever.” Lena suddenly gasps, slamming her hand of cards face-down on the table, startling Reinhardt from his philosophical studying of his cards “Jesse! You’re a friendly guy, right? Right! You should try to become friends with Hanzo! He doesn’t really talk ta anyone unless he’s fighting with ‘em, especially with Genji, so if ya can befriend him it’d mean the world ta me!”

 

“To you?”

 

“Yeah! I’ve tried ta be friends with ‘em and all, but he just don’t like me, says I’m annoying! You’re friendly too, but not hyper like I am all the time, so it might work out! I hate seeing him all alone all the time!” She blinks so she’s inches from Jesse’s face, making him fall backwards from not expecting that. She gives him her equivalent of “puppy eyes” and says “Please, please, please!”

 

“Uh, a’right.., I can try. Ain’t no guarantees though.” Jesse replies, defeated.

 

“Yay!” Lena blinks back to her previous spot, pumping a fist to the air in celebration “Look out world! Jesse McCree’s gonna do the unthinkable!” Jesse laughs along with her giggling fit. Then, like Zeus himself descended from the clouds, Reinhardt places a wild card on the pile and says “Yellow.” far too seriously for a card game. He seemed oblivious to the entire conversation his younger friends had just had. Lena has another giggle fit that leaves Reinhardt confused.

 

Eventually they finish a singular game after almost an hour, Reinhardt won, and was now sitting on a couch, that was in the same room, and reading a book. Lena and Jesse remained at the little table, talking.

 

“So, what do ya think of Ovahwatch so far?” Lena asks excitedly.

 

“Well, I haven’t had ta deal with that Gabriel guy yet, so I can’t really say. He’s supposedly going to train me until I’m up ta par with the rest of y’all. It’s clearly all a disguise of Jack and Gabriel’s distrust with me, making him watch me closely once I’m able to wield my gun again.”

 

“Oh, Gabriel’s a fake, don’t worry!” Lena says, waving her hand at him “He’s actually not as scary as he may seem at first! He’s like Ana sometimes, trying ta be everyone’s dad. Jack tops that one though, he’s tha better dad. In more ways than one, if ya know what I mean!” Lena starts laughing really loud when Jesse gives her a half startled, half “what the fuck” look.

 

“They’re probably just acting like this to make sure you’re for real about joining us! Once they see that you’ll be treated the same way as everyone else by the two of them!” Lena says reassuringly.

 

“Okay..,” Jesse says. He remembers something he had thought was weird from during the dinner, “Why’s there an extra chair at the dining table?”

 

“What do ya mean?” Lena says, her head turning to the side a little.

 

“I mean, if there’s enough people for every otha seat, why not that one seat? Did someone die or somethin’?”

 

“Oh, that chair. Not exactly! Ya ever heard of Tekhartha Mondatta? He’s one of them Omnic monks from Nepal. He was with Ovahwatch for awhile and tha’s where he sat, but he returned to Nepal a few months back.”

 

“That guy.” Jesse says simply as an image of the Omnic appears in his mind.

 

He certainly hadn’t known that.


	5. Chapter 5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> We're getting places people! Jesse's arm is healed so the main plot can start, and the McHanzo one also is starting.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I dropped typing the accents because it gets harder to remember who I type what for as I go along. I'm pretty sure I did Lena wrong in a few of her lines compared to how I wrote it in her first appearance? I'm just going to drop that because of that reason.
> 
> Here comes Jesse's worries though, I'm shoving two in one chapter.

Jesse had gotten the sling off his arm and now had to train with Gabriel. He’d be lying if he said he didn’t feel anxious about it, since he’d been trying to avoid the man since they arrived. He wouldn’t have the comfort of his friends since he’d be in the Blackwatch wing (that is unless one of them went all the way to Blackwatch’s training room). He didn’t know what to expect.

 

“Alright kid,” Reyes begins “I’m gonna put you against Genji to see how well you are at hand to hand combat.”

 

“Okay..,” Jesse replies, not particularly wanting to fight Genji of all people. Reyes leaves the room and comes back a moment later with Genji who stands a few feet across from him on a mat that had been laid down.

 

“I’m going to watch you to see what you do or don’t know and we can work from there. First I want to see how well you can dodge, Genji start when you’re ready. An enemy doesn’t wait for you to be ready before attacking.”

 

Genji stays still, carefully watching Jesse. Jesse looked like a deer in headlights, not knowing exactly what was happening. The cyborg runs forwards one direction, then leaps to the other to intercept the cowboy, dropping his weight on him to slam him into the mat. He didn’t even last 5 seconds.

 

“Such prowess you have.” Genji remarks in mockery.

 

“Genji.” Reyes growls in a commanding tone, seemingly satisfied when Genji doesn’t speak again as he returns to his previous spot. “This time you’ll both be on the offensive.” Gabriel states.

 

Genji darts forwards again, seeing if the cowboy hadn’t learned from last time. Jesse rolls out of the way so the cyborg’s back is to him for the moment. Jesse turns it into a wrestling match as he dives on the other, straddling him to keep him stuck while sprawled out on the floor. He shoves his weight down onto him to squish him into the floor to hopefully cease all his squirming. Genji manages to roll over so Jesse’s on the floor again, putting a foot on his head to keep him down. Jesse doesn’t quite like that and suddenly throws the cyborg off him. The foot on his head reminded him of something that happened all too much in Deadlock and he wasn’t about to let this cyborg do the same.

 

Gabriel notices the sudden surge of what had looked like panic in Jesse’s movements, and how he had turned it into fighting power to get the other off him. Quite smart.

 

Both of them are back on their feet, Jesse looking completely out of breath but still on his feet. Genji runs forwards again but stops just before he would have collided with the other, instead dropping down and kicking his feet from under him. Jesse stumbles forwards, catching himself before he fell, then swiftly turns around and barely intercepts a punch that had been flung at him. He pushes against Genji’s fist to unbalance him, then shoves him to the side and back to the ground. The Omnic growls in frustration as Jesse keeps him down on the mat with a head lock. Genji manages to shove Jesse off him, sending him back to the floor again. Jesse catches Genji’s fist in his hand and struggles to keep it away from himself, shaking with the extra effort after a moment. The cyborg had enough force he was pressing down that if Jesse let go it’d be a flat out punch to the face as if nothing had blocked it in the first place. Jesse curls his legs to his feet and kicks Genji back off him, Genji stumbling to his feet, as he remains on the ground trying to find strength to stand back up.

 

He slowly gets back to his feet, watching the other carefully. Genji easily shoves him back down to the ground, twisting him so he’d land front first. Jesse had gotten to his knees about to stand up again but Genji stomped him back to the ground. Jesse remained completely still, the only noise being his ragged breaths.

 

Reyes called it there and dismissed Genji before addressing Jesse again, who had just barely clambered back to his feet again. “What was that?” Gabriel starts “When he had his foot on your head you lost it.”

 

Jesse was silent at first “That’s what happened before- before they would hurt me.” It was obvious that wasn’t the full truth, but it wasn’t a lie either.

 

“You know I wouldn’t let him actually hurt you, right?” Gabriel says, sounding concerned now. He sighs and pats his back a few times “None of us would hurt you like they did. I’ll tell Angela about this and see if she can help how panicky you get.” Reyes walks away after a moment of silence, Jesse following him as far as the end of the Blackwatch wing of the base before turning a different direction and into the “living room”. It didn’t seem like a big deal but Gabriel had made it a big deal, so it must have been right? Or maybe it was Gabriel who was overreacting. Trying to be the dad as Lena had said.

 

He falls face first on the unoccupied couch, pulling a pillow to his face, and remains there silently. Ana and Reinhardt were also in there. Since his face was in a pillow he wasn’t sure which of the two was approaching him when he heard footsteps coming towards him. “Are you alright, Jesse? You look tired.” It was Ana.

 

“I just left my first “training session” with Reyes. He made a big deal about something when I was sparring with Genji and he’s probably telling Angela about it right now.”

 

“Everyone here knows you’ve gone through a lot, though we’re not sure what, so he’s probably being paranoid.” Ana says as she sits Jesse up and then sits beside him. “If there are problems or fears still with you even after leaving Deadlock you should tell someone.”

 

“There’s nothing wrong.” Jesse said harsher than he intended, and it clearly meant that was a lie. Ana just nods her head a little before leaving him alone again.

 

\---

 

It was late in the night but Jesse was still wide awake. He was silently lurking around the base with no real motive in doing so other than he didn’t feel tired. The base’s lights were dimmed during the night, casting everything in an eerie glow, shadows collecting in the corners of rooms he had called safe. Jesse was never a fan of the dark, but wasn’t deathly afraid of it to the point he couldn’t even look out the window at night. He just didn’t like it. He quietly went from room to room to see if anyone was up, suddenly having a burning need to find someone else because of the complete silence around the base.

 

“Didn’t think you of all people would still be up.” A voice echoes from behind him, startling Jesse. He turns around to see Hanzo.

 

“I’m just not tired and couldn’t stand sitting in bed for this long.” Jesse replies.

 

“It looked like you were walking through a horror house with how you darted from room to room.” Hanzo states flatly.

 

“I- Wait, have you been following me?” Jesse says, disbelief evident in his tone.

 

“For a while now.”

 

Jesse mumbles something under his breath as he crossed his arms tightly at his chest, his gaze flicking around. “You afraid of the dark, cowboy?” Hanzo says in an amused tone.

 

“N-No! I just- It- Never mind..,” Jesse splutters, face turning red in embarrassment “I can’t really explain it without telling a huge story to go along with it.”

 

Hanzo watched him silently for a moment “We’ve got time. The earliest risers rise at 5 and it’s only 11.”

 

Jesse brought his gaze back to the archer, his eyes looking glossy in the dim light. “You’d be the only one to know any of this about me.” He says, mostly thinking aloud as his stomach twists into knots. He sighs and sits against the wall going quiet for awhile. Hanzo eventually sat next to him waiting for the other to gather his thoughts.

 

You see, Hanzo wasn’t one to engage in conversations usually. He stood off to the side and observed, simply listening to what others said to learn more about them that way.

 

“I don’t know where I’d start.” Jesse says in defeat, running memories through his head.

 

“At the beginning. If you don’t know where to start with something as simple than this then just say everything.” Hanzo says as if it’s the simplest thing in the world.

 

“Okay..,” Jesse says after a moment. He wrings his hands together, a nervous habit, as he starts as far back as he could remember.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So the next chapter I wrote before this one so it's not Jesse's explination of his past. That'll be Chapter 7 and the entire chapter will be that, just so you know! I'm about to start working on it after I post the next one so it should at latest be out by tomorrow.


	6. Chapter 6

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sombra is here! I've heard from a few people that there's this theory (?) that Talon and Jamison and Mako were in some kind of union or alliance with each other? Something like that. So I've slapped the two junkers into Sombra's plot to bring them to Overwatch and make it more exciting. Sombra will be a main character (at least planned so far she is) which I don't see a lot of, so I'm looking forwards to that!

Sombra was sitting on a roof loudly chewing a popping some bubble gum. She had a screen in front of her, swinging her feet back and forth in mid-air as she clicked around out of boredom. A loud ding startles her a bit that informed her of a pending message. She opens the notification and it brings her to an email from “Athena” and it reads as so:

 

“To my dear friend (Insert Sombra’s name here, pff),

 

It is to my understanding why you’ve gone out of contact with us, but problems are quickly rising. As you may or may not know, Tekhartha Mondatta left us a few months back, in the autumn, and that makes us one mind short of what we need. The Omnics are getting smarter and harder to stop. We’ve lost thousands since your leave and I can’t help but ask for your return. We need you, (Sombra’s name), please come home.

 

With hope no matter your decision, Winston.

P.S. If you could bring peanut butter I’d do anything for you. I’m running out and have no time to get more, thanks.”

 

Sombra allowed a small smile to grow on her face as she read the last part “Winston’s not changed at all.” She remarks as she stands up and stretches with her arms above her head. She tosses a translocator down until she hears it’s click when it hits the ground. She teleports herself down to the dusty ground and looks around.

 

She’s almost run over by someone “ Oh dios mi amigo!” Sombra says as she narrowly dodges the now collapsed man.

 

“Ah, ya’ve gotta admit that was beyond cool!” The guy says with what someone would classify as a psychotic laugh.

 

Sombra shakes her head “Where’s Mako?” Her question is answered when she hears the behemoth of a man approaching from the direction the other had fallen out of the sky from.

 

“Sorry about that,” Mako says, his mask facing Jamison who was still face-first on the ground “he thought jumping on his mines while blowing them up was a good idea.”

 

“Evidently not, you could have crushed me!” Sombra says, dusting herself off after noticing some dust had got on her. Dust? In the middle of desolate Australia? Who would have guessed??

 

“Alright you two, shut up and listen carefully.” She says as Mako picks Jamison up off the ground and sets him upright so he’ll pay attention to her. She shows them the email she had just received “Winston wants me back at Overwatch, the Omnics are getting smarter and he needs more mind power because Mondatta had to go watch over Nepal again. What do you two think?”

 

“If it’s a chance ta blow up some Omnics oi’m in!” Jamison says while making a punching motion at the air. Mako simply shrugs “I have to go where he goes anyways.”

 

“Alright, I’ll tell Winston I’m coming and surprise him with more fire power as well! He’ll get a kick outta that.” Sombra says as she seemingly types on thin air for a bit.

 

Jamison laughs again like when he had been flung out of the sky from good, old gravity “They’re not gonna know what hit ‘em!”

 

“Almost.., done!” Sombra says as she sends a reply back to Athena, “Now we just need to hope Winston doesn’t ignore or forget about his email for several days or he won’t even know I’m coming in the first place. That’d be a bit of a doozy.”

 

“How do you propose we get out of here?” Mako presents the problem as openly as the sun’s rays in a desert.

 

“If that old boat of yours isn’t too bad we can reinforce it and head up to Christmas Island’s airport and we’re home free.” Sombra says as she swivels around and heads towards the shore and to where Mako and Jamison had stowed their old boat. The other two follow her.

 

They eventually arrive at the location of the boat, and to their luck it’s still there on the dock’s. It was a decent sized boat, generally one meant for a week or two fishing trip with a crew of up to 5 or 6. With three of them and probably about 3 days of sailing, they’d be okay.

 

Mako had brought what little they had with them and dumped that in the boat first before he got on to assemble the sail and check for any other damages that may or may not be there. Sombra was watching the ocean as it tumbled back and forth in the slight wind, while Jamison began babbling about “One time I caught a fish with me bare hands!”

 

Mako waves the two in after finding nothing wrong with the boat. Sombra grabbed the rope that it was tethered with and walked leisurely to the boat with it in her hand, handing it to Mako to coil up off to the side before stepping down into the boat. They pushed themselves off the dock, all three physically shoving against the dock, and before they knew it the sail was operating and northwards the went.

 

Most of the time Mako was staring silently towards where Christmas Island would appear once they were close enough to see it. Jamison would sit at Sombra’s side and watch whatever she was doing. She made sure he wasn’t bored because knowing Jamison he might try to blow something up, taking the ship and the other two with it.

 

They finally arrive at Christmas Island. They abandon the bat after securing it at a dock once more and walk until they reach a field of concrete. (I don’t actually know what the airport there looks like so I’m using my imagination to substitute for my lack of research) Now they had to get their hands on both a plane and someone who would be willing to drive her and her freakshow friends near the  Iberian Peninsula .

 

Sombra leads them to a small building off to their far right. She has them wait outside to further their chances of getting someone to fly them where they need to go. She opens the door, steps inside, and says “Who here is willing to fly all the way to Europe?”

 

“What’re ya payin’?” One calls out, others murmuring in agreement.

 

Sombra shrugs nonchalantly “Oh, just 50k in USD. Not much.” That riled the pilots up, all offering to fly her. “But!” She starts again “You need a plane large enough for four other people, besides yourself.”

 

That narrowed it down to eventually one pilot who she chose. The pilot led her to her plane. “I’ll go get mi amigos..,” Sombra says as she wanders off to go fetch them. When she returns the pilot stares at the other two, mouth agape. She quickly shuts it and unlocks the doors to the plane before starting it up to prepare for take off.

 

It was smooth sailing.


	7. Chapter 7

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It's short but gets the point across as to what happened. OKAY, I'M GOING TO SLEEP NOW, BYE-

“Like everyone else knows, and I assume you know, I was abducted one night and woke up at Deadlock’s main base. They told me that my parents had made them take me and I had believed them for a few months until I convinced myself that wasn’t true. They told me everything I did was wrong, even when I know I did it right; it was all just excuses for them to shove me around. I started believing them when I was 13 I believe.” Jesse stops for a moment, licking his lips nervously.

 

“I believed everything I did was wrong, that I was a mistake. Just one big fuck up. I was the puppet and they were the puppeteers. If they wanted something from me they got it. If they wanted me to go out of my way to kill someone they themselves failed to kill or something like that they’d hurt me if I didn’t.”

 

“Deadlock is just one big pyramid scheme. They capture and force some in, like me, and promise others undying safety. Everyone who isn’t of high status has to pamper their asses with whatever they want whenever, so it wasn’t only me they did this too.”

 

“When I was 15 they started taking things past beating me for what they wanted. Some of them they- they’d start saying suggestive things and threats to try and intimidate me into doing what they had wanted, and if I didn’t? They’d carry out their threats.” Jesse stops again, shifting his now wavering stare from the floor over to Hanzo. The archer had a stoic expression, but you could see the gears turning and thinking from his eyes.

 

Jesse continues, his voice becoming uneven “It didn’t matter where we were, what we were doing, or what was going on. If I tried to refuse they’d put their hands all over me, and-” Jesse felt uncomfortably hot tears slide down his face, remembering all the shit they put him through. He choked back a few sobs.

 

Hanzo’s eyebrows were drawn together in concern. He hesitantly took one of the distraught cowboy’s hands into both of his, trying to comfort him. The gesture was enough for the other to start crying, unable to hold back the emotions from almost 10 years of that treatment.

 

Even more hesitantly, Hanzo hugged the other in a comforting manner, immediately having the gesture returned. The archer wasn’t exactly the best at interacting with people, especially not with situations like this. He remembered when he was much, much younger, back when his dad wasn’t dead, how the few times his dad tried to stop he or Genji from crying he’d hug them and try to reassure them.

 

Still unsure of himself, he tosses Jesse’s hat off to the side and rests his head atop Jesse’s, who currently had his face glued to Hanzo’s chest. Eventually Jesse pulled away to lay his head on Hanzo’s shoulder, giving a death grip to his back.

 

Jesse continues “It was humiliating and embarrassing. I was turned into a toy in their eyes, and I hate it, hate them. One time I tried to shove them away but they threatened me with their gun.”

 

“That’s not even all of it. As you know a big part of Deadlock’s infamousy was how much we- they slaughter. When Peacekeeper, my revolver, was in my hand I felt invincible. But I always felt sick to my stomach when I killed someone. It’s revolting, and I am for it too.” He laughs bitterly “To answer the question of why I don’t like the dark it’s because Deadlock is nocturnal; most things happened at night and in the dark. It just- scares me. I always expect someone to try and jump me, I got used to it after how long it kept happening.” He falls silent.

 

“I’m sorry,” Was the most Hanzo could come up with to say after all that. “Nothing like that happens around here, I can assure you.”

 

Jesse closes his eyes “No one’s ever wanted to help me before. Now there’s- there’s you, and Lena, and Angela, Ana. Everyone wants to but no one ever has, it was starting to overwhelm me, honestly.”

 

“You can come to me about it if you ever need to.”

 

“Really? You seem so distant from everyone else.” Jesse replies tiredly but confused.

 

“I’ve always said it’s unwise to make friends in this line of work, but for you I can make an exception. You need to talk to someone about that, and that someone was me. I can’t just go on ignoring you after all that, can I?”


	8. Chapter 8

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Some quality time with Lena.

Jesse seemed like a zombie that morning, according to Lena, because of how tired he was (from the night prior). “What’s got you so tired?” She asks curiously.

 

“Uh, well, I ended up in the halls for hours is all.” Jesse replies vaguely, his tired eyes staring straight ahead at nothing in particular.

 

Lena laughs a little “Why were you in the halls then?”

 

“I couldn’t sleep. I ran into Hanzo, though, and we talked. For a long time. Well, I did most of the talking, same thing.”

 

“You actually talked to him!?” Lena says obnoxiously loud as she slams her hands on the table in eccentric disbelief. “He doesn’t talk unless he’s being like Genji, making fun of people!”

 

“Well-” Jesse starts but Lena cuts him off “I think you can actually do it! I think you can be the first to befriend him!” She says giddily.

 

Jesse laughs a bit nervously “It wouldn’t end up being any of the reasons you could come up with.”

 

“For what?” Lena’s enthusiasm is dropped as if it were never there at her friend’s sad tone.

 

“For he and I ever being friends.”

 

“Did he do something to you? Do I need to go slap him for you?” Lena says, a playful tone underlying her “serious” one.

 

Jesse stifles a laugh as he replies “No, he did the complete opposite of hurting me, he helped me. There’s no need to slap anyone, Lena.”

 

“Okay.., good!” Lena chirps as she properly sits in her chair again. Jesse’s appreciative when she drops the subject for something else “So Winston’s telling me an old friend of Overwatch is coming back to help us against the Omnics because of Mondatta’s leave! I’m not sure who it may be, there’s tons of former agents and allies that left for various reasons.”

 

“Who do you think it might be?” Jesse says curiously, though he wouldn’t know any of the people she would suggest.

 

“I have no clue, honestly!” Lena says after a moment of thought. “We’ll see who it is soon, though! Winston said he contacted them during that big dinner, which was why he was late, and that they said they were coming here with ideas on how to keep the Omnics in control again. They’ve seemed to learn all our tactics, abilities, and strategies lately and have been terrifyingly good at countering us.” Lena says in a rare moment of genuine seriousness.

 

“Isn’t Mondatta an Omnic too? Why was he with you all if you’re fighting the Omnics? I thought he was one of those monks who wanted everyone to settle down and be peaceful.”

 

“He is, but he agrees with us at Overwatch that this is not how we will achieve anything! If the Omnics win it’ll be even worse, I just know it, so Winston and Jack convinced Mondatta further with that and he worked with us for a while. There’s been several deadly attacks near Nepal though, so he returned to keep it under control over there. He says that though he doesn’t like all the fighting we need to settle it sooner than later. Once it’s over Mondatta and the other Omnics who aren’t like the ones we’re fighting say they’re going to wait a bit for the hatred to lessen before acting to repair what was broken, both literally and figuratively!” Lena gasps for breath after not stopping anywhere in between her chattering.

 

“Huh, I’ve never thought about it like that. What do you think the Omnics would do if they won?” Jesse asks this because as of right now the Omnics were at an advantage over Overwatch and everyone else against them, currently in a winning position if they remained like that for a few more months. It was the scary truth.

 

“I’ve not really thought about it before because I know it won’t happen, I won’t let it! But..,” She trails off to gather her thoughts and come up with an answer before replying “I think they’d flat out rid humanity off the planet, honestly speaking here! I’ve heard there’s like a virus or something in them making them act like this, to kill anyone who isn’t an Omnic, especially if they’re in their way. If there was no virus this war wouldn’t have happened I think. At least not as soon and as viciously as it has been.” It sounded weird to hear Lena being so dark and serious compared to her usual, bubbly self. “What do you think they would do?”

 

“I think they would give humans their former roles as Omnics, swapping how society works. They’d be the humans and we’d be the Omnics.” Jesse replies.

 

“Oh man, now that I’m thinking about it these are very real possibilities of the near future! Whoever’s coming better get here faster because Winston says they have a plan, a real good plan none of the Omnics would suspect, but he hasn’t told anyone. He says it’s a surprise, so it must be better than any of us could ever imagine!”

 

“I sure hope so.” Jesse says.

 

Lena changes the subject again to something completely unrelated “Hey, have you heard about Fareeha?”

 

“Fareeha? Who or what’s that?” Jesse says confused.

 

“Fareeha! She’s Ana’s daughter. I think she’s 12 right now but she’ll be coming here within the next few months so she’ll be safe. She really wants to help us when she’s older, live up to her mother’s name and skill and all that! I hear she’s a lot line Ana too, so that’ll be interesting. Just imagine,” Lena makes dramatic gestures with her hands “two Anas..!”

 

“That’d be a little scary.” Jesse jokes, making Lena laugh.

 

“It would be!” Lena exclaims.

 

“Can’t you kids be quiet for five minutes?” A tired Angela grumbles as she walks into the room.

 

“No can do!” Lena says after she blinks in front of the medic, a huge grin on her face and a terrible attempt at a salute.

 

Angela turns to Jesse and asks “How’s your arm? I heard you had your first practice yesterday and wanted to know if it’s been bothering you any.”

 

“It’s fine.” Jesse says a bit apprehensive, hoping Angela won’t mention anything about what Reyes had told her about it. He had seemed to overreact about it, and he didn’t want the doctor to as well.

 

Lena looks between the two quickly, noticing the slight tension in the air “Am I missing something, or?”

 

“It’s nothing Lena, some things are better left unsaid.” Angela says as she leaves to go get herself a coffee.

 

“Uh.., okay!” Lena says sounding confused, her head slightly tilted. She seems to come back to life, jumping a little “Look Jesse! It’s Hanzo! Hi Hanzo!” She waves hyperly at the archer who had been passing by. He stared blankly at Lena before rolling his eyes at her and entering the room.

 

“Your blood must be coffee and sugar if you’re this hyper at 8 in the morning..,” Hanzo says, sounding annoyed.

 

“It isn’t!” Lena says indignantly “But for your information, that sounds pretty darn cool, mister!” Lena says, trying and failing to sound serious. Jesse gives her a questioning look that she doesn’t miss “What?” she says before laughing.

 

“You’re going to wake everyone up, Lena. You’re nearly yelling at this point.” Angela says as she reappears with a cup of coffee, steam visibly rolling off the top of the mug. She waves slightly, in greeting, to Hanzo since he was around for once.

 

“I’m barely yelling at all!” Lena protests “Want me to show you my yelling voice?” Lena says slyly. Angela makes a strange face as Lena yells as loud as she can. A “Shut up!” can be heard from down the hall, sounding like a pissed off Ana who was just woken up because of it.

 

Angela can’t help but start chuckling after that, Lena giving a triumphant grin “See?”

 

Hanzo looked far past unimpressed when Jesse glanced over at him. 


	9. Chapter 9

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sombra and co. finally arrive at Gibraltar.

The trio arrive at the main entrance to the Gibraltar base which was where Overwatch’s main headquarters should be right now. Because of all the trouble with Omnics they keep jumping bases for which one is their at the time main base.

 

Sombra gingerly presses a button by the big, sliding door that would allow whoever was manning the gate to be aware of her presence. A staticy voice comes through “State your business.” They really needed to up their technology and get cameras in these things.

 

“It’s Sombra, Winston should be expecting me.” She says simply. Without any further questioning the door slowly, and loudly, breaks apart in the center and recedes into the walls. Sombra motions for the two junkers to follow her in.

 

“Wouldn’t they attack us, mate? I mean, lookit us!” Jamison motions towards Mako and himself.

 

“I doubt it. They might be suspicious but they wouldn’t flat out attack you if you’re with me anyways.” Sombra informs, not having turned around in the first place.

 

“Aw, aright, if you say so.” Jamison says, following closely behind the woman.

 

They head towards Winston’s room, Sombra knocking on the wall beside the open door. Winston jumps a little, fixes his glasses, and then turns around “Ah! Welcome Sombra! I see.., you’ve brought friends?” The scientist questions at the sight of the two behind her.

 

“Yes, Jamison, Mako, this is Winston. Winston, Jamison and Mako.” She pointed to the two respectively “They’ve been known to cause mayhem and I met them in Australia. I’ve been with them the past year, and, well, here they are to help you and Overwatch out some.” Sombra says as she walks into the room.

 

“Good, good! The more help we can get the better!” Winston says as he stands up to walk over to them.

 

“So you’re really a monkey, huh?” Jamison says, giving Winston a weird look of disbelief. He had heard that Winston was a gorilla but just never imagined it.

 

“Well, put simply yes. I am a “monkey”.” Winston says, bringing his hands up for air quotes when he says ‘monkey’.

 

“Alright, enough chit chat.” Sombra says “What’s the deal with the Omnics right now, Winston?”

 

Winston pushes his glasses back in place again “We’ve got a blockade at King’s Row, keeping the Omnics with the virus out right now. They’re starting to tire and the Omnics are getting closer to breaking in. Then over at Nepal Mondatta has been able to sizzle down the amount of attacks in the area, but it’s not happening fast enough.”

 

Winston goes back to his chair and speaks to Athena, “Athena, do you have visuals on King’s Row at the moment?”

 

“Yes, Winston. I’m pulling them up now.” The AI says as a holographic display of what was currently happening in King’s Row sprung to life in the center of the room.

 

“You see,” Winston starts again, pointing at some of the Overwatch soldiers that were currently in view “we have a lot of us down there right now. We may need to spare some of the specialized agents soon, which means things are going into a downward spiral. Commander Morrison and I have a theory that there’s someone down there who’s mass producing Omnics, as when one falls two more take it’s place, slightly different than the previous one. We don’t know if it’s true and if it is we don’t know who it is. But to put it all simply, we’re losing King’s Row and losing everything all together from our failed efforts both there and by Nepal. We’ve heard rumors that Eichenwalde is about to be hit, so we’ve had to send another troop of soldiers out that way just in case. We don’t have enough soldiers for this, Sombra, if we lose King’s Row we’re all dead men.” Winston finishes.

 

Sombra has her arms crossed, a finger tapping her nose a few times in thought “I know an Omnic who’s the same kind as the ones fighting, but he’s virus free. They’re called E54, but I’ve called them Bastion. They’re quite cheery for an Omnic, so they’re bound to be more than willing to help. They’re currently in Germany if I recall, so it’ll take a day or two for them to physically get here if we go down that path.”

 

“What do you have in mind with this Bastion?” Winston questions, sounding intrigued.

 

“They can stay in the back of the forces pressing into King’s Row. When that particular troop they sneak into goes back to base for resupply or whatever it may be they can hang back and see if they can find out if anyone is doing what you and Morrison think might be happening. It’s risky, but it’s our best chance.”

 

“It’s- It’s the best we’ve got. The only thing we’ve got. We need to get that Omnic here so we can figure out exactly what they’ll do.” Winston concludes.

 

He then turns to the two Aussies “As for you two, I don’t know exactly what to do with you, I hadn’t anticipated..,” he trails off, his meaning clear enough without needing to be said.

 

“It’s all good, monkey. We can do anything as long as we’re a team. If I can survive blowing myself up, the two of us can do anything you throw at us.” Jamison says.

 

“We may as well introduce you two and reintroduce you, Sombra, to who’s here with us in the base. We’ve had a few new recruits come in since your leave after all.” Winston says. He leads them down the hall to the rooms where the agents tended to be when they weren’t doing anything else. It was still early in the morning.

 

Winston was the first to enter the living area. Angela, Lena, Jesse, Hanzo, and a grumpy Ana were gathered in there. They all looked over to him as he cleared his throat “Good morning! A friend of ours has returned and brought two of her own friends with her.” He moves aside and Sombra steps into the room.

 

Sombra recognizes everyone except one, but Winston answers her question before she can even think to answer it “He’s our newest recruit, brought here because Reyes shot his, uh, shoulder. Now he’s a part of Blackwatch. That’s Jesse McCree. Jesse, this is Sombra.” He introduces the two briefly.

 

“And these two are..?” Winston says, not exactly remembering their names himself.

 

Jamison speaks up “You can call me Junkrat, and this here is my mate Roadhog! If you have anything you want to blow up we’d be first in line.”

 

“Another Lena.” Angela mutters into her mug “Except he’s hellbent on explosions rather than time traveling.”


	10. Chapter 10

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, uhh, about this chapter- (and why I haven't updated in a few days)
> 
> My oldest cat, Oliver (he was 18 since two and a half weeks ago, he could vote >:3) started, I guess "shutting down" is the right thing to say to that? The first day with no updates I was taking what I intended to be a day break while I figured out what the snick snack paddy wack I'd do for this next chapter, then yesterday Oliver was barely moving. Like, he couldn't walk, he'd collapse and just lay there so we moved him onto a couch. Same thing earlier today. My dad took him to the vet and we all knew before he went that he would be euthanized. And he was, so that's why this chapter is kinda violent-
> 
> But he was an old cat, in pain from simply walking as of two years ago. The vet said he would have died in the middle of tonight if we hadn't brought him in, so at least he'd die a few hours earlier than he should have and peacefully rather than in whatever pain he was in. I think it was one (or more??) of his major organs shutting down suddenly that caused this. That cat was two years older than me, dang.
> 
> I'm fine though, surprisingly. We all came to terms that it would happen "soon" since he was like 16, two years ago. And if within the next few days there isn't at least a daily update it's because I'm either drawing Mr. Oliver or doing a short little pmv with him as the character, so I'm looking forward to that.
> 
> And thou shall dedicate this chaotic chapter to thou cat-eth named Oliver-eth! None shall pass!

Winston had said that an Omnic by the name of Bastion would be arriving within the next few days to infiltrate the enemy lines in King’s Row. Bastion arrived the day after the other three had. The halls were strangely quiet, as most people were at a meeting Winston was holding. All Overwatch operatives and Blackwatch’s commander, Reyes, were there. That meant Junkrat, Roadhog, Genji, and Jesse were the only ones not there, as they would attend one after Bastion figures out what’s going on in King’s Row.

 

Genji stalks through the halls, halting abruptly in front of the cowboy looking really pissed off, reason unknown to Jesse. “Stay away from Angela!” He snarls, the bridge of his nose scrunching up.

 

Jesse takes a step back with his hands up “Woah, woah, what now?”

 

“Don’t pretend you don’t know what I’m talking about, you fool. I’ve found you and Angela are always around each other, seemingly alone on multiple occasions.”

 

“W-What?” Jesse says, tilting his head slightly in confusion.

 

“You’ve been a criminal for how long did you say? Ten years? That doesn’t just go away overnight!” Genji jabs a finger at Jesse.

 

Jesse flinches “What does that have to do with Angela and I?”

 

“You’re a criminal and she’s an unsuspecting victim! I know what goes on in that gang of yours. You’re going to lull her into a false sense of friendship until she without a doubt trusts you and then throw it back in her face and betray her trust.”

 

Now Jesse gets mad, yelling back to the cyborg “You think you know Deadlock? You think you know me? You don’t know anything that happened there, what they did to me and some of the others. You can’t say anything, you’re just being a little bitch because you think I’m trying to steal her away from you!” He clenches his fists tightly.

 

Genji takes a step closer, his own fists clenching as well “What did you just call me?” The narrow-eyed glare he gave Jesse was pure venom.

 

“You’re a little bitch.” Jesse says each word slowly, shoving the cyborg away from him, having far past intruded his personal space.

 

Genji throws his cybernetic fist at him. Jesse slides out of the way, just barely evading the punch. He slams the cyborg into the wall, his arm pressing the back of his neck down to make escape more difficult. Genji, being a ninja and all, kicks Jesse away from him. The two fought with each other for quite a while; the echoes of fists hitting walls, clangs of metal, sounds that sound more like they should belong to animals than mankind. 

 

When they hear footsteps quickly approaching from down the hall Genji has gone as far as trying to slice the cowboy like salami with his sword. The cyborg’s sword was caught between both of Jesse’s hands, Jesse himself backed into a corner. He, of course, was pushing against a sharp blade that had a lot of force being driven down in his direction. Blood had soaked through his gloves and ever so slowly dripped on the floor by his boots. If he let go of the sword it would most likely strike a huge gash vertically down his abdomen, which no one wants, now do they?

 

“Genji!” Reyes voice echoes loudly, sounding enraged. Reinhardt quickly hauled Genji away from Jesse, smacking the sword out of and away from Genji’s hands for the time being. The giant of a man had to crush the cyborg between his arms and chest so he wouldn’t break free of his grip.

 

“What the hell is going on here?” Morrison barks, his narrowed eyes looking between Jesse and Genji.

 

“He started attacking me!” “He called me a bitch!” The two said at the same time.

 

Jack was pinching the bridge of his nose as Reyes took control over the situation “You two. My office. Now.” He turns around without another word and goes to his office.

 

Reinhardt acted as a wall to make sure his little friend wouldn’t try to attack Jesse again. Meanwhile Jesse’s feet felt like steel that was melded to the floor. He swallowed thickly, staring at the destroyed palms of his hands, feeling what would probably become a panic attack rising in him. He forces his feet to move forwards though, using all his willpower to do so. When he got in the room Genij and Reyes were sharing evil glares with each other, both looking up when Jesse entered the room, looking slightly pale from the blood loss.

 

“Alright you two, tell me exactly what happened.” Gabriel says, leaning all his weight to his hands on his desk. He glared at Genji, trying to get him to speak first.

 

“You know where he came from, was raised, and you know what those- things do to people! He’s been around Angela far too much for how short a time he’s been here for it to be safe for her. He made me angry, and in my defence, he attacked me first.” Genji’s arms were crossed the whole time.

 

“You tried to kill him, Genji! You tried to kill him because you were angry!?” Reyes’s voice raises in volume as he goes on “I get pissed off all the time, and if that’s how it worked just about everyone here I would have killed, or tried to kill, by now. Just because you’ve managed to scrape past death by a thread doesn’t mean you have a higher standing over anyone.”

 

“He-” Genji starts but is cut off when Reyes barks at him “Shut up, it’s his turn.”

 

“Genji came to me saying how I was going to become friends with Angela and then betray her trust. He acts like he knows everything about me, and for the record, I shoved him away from me because he was literal inches from me. Then he tried to punch me, then-” He looks down at his hands which he could barely move because of his sliced palms “Then this happened after a while.”

 

Gabriel dropped himself into his chair, it rolling back slightly from the sudden force upon it. “Here’s what we’ll do.” He says after a tense silence between the three “I don’t want to see either of you near each other for the next three weeks, to avoid anything like that happening again. I don’t want either of you to turn up dead in the halls by your own teammate.” He leaves it at that, waving them out of the door.

 

Now that the tense air of Gabriel’s office was a ways behind him his mind refocused on his hands, on the blade that nearly killed him. That if they had been just a bit further away they probably wouldn’t have been heard and he’d be dead. He decides he should probably go to Angela about this, but he feels conflicted.

 

Genji started that whole thing because of his suspicions, and being near the doctor after that wouldn’t help anything. Instead he opted out of that idea as he slid down the wall, his arms and hands laying limp on the floor, palms up as he slouched there uselessly. He didn’t know exactly what he was trying to accomplish with this, or if he had a goal from this. Jesse’s eyes close, though he doesn’t fall asleep. He closes them because of his faint, sick feeling from the ordeal.

 

“Jesse?” He hears a quiet voice call his name.

 

He opens his eyes as Hanzo crouches down to his level, a worried, perhaps slightly scared, look on his face “What happened to you? Why are your hands cut?”

 

“Genji.” Is all he feels he needs to say in reply.

 

Hanzo sighs and sits next to him “Shouldn’t you speak to Dr. Ziegler about this?”

 

“That was why he attacked me. He thinks I’m going to betray her trust and kill her or something. Being near her after that would only fuel his suspicions..,” THe cowboy slowly drags his heavy gaze from off the floor to the archer beside him.

 

Hanzo could see how distraught the other really was and pulls him into a hug like the one from a few nights prior, except Jesse didn’t try to move his arms, instead leaning most of his weight into the other. “You’ll be fine.”

 

“I’ve barely been here two weeks, why are you helping me so much?” Jesse’s voice is muffled from being pressed against Hanzo’s shoulder. He didn’t know why, but Hanzo’s sudden presence had made him want to start crying about the ordeal.

 

“I guess I wouldn’t know, but aren’t friends supposed to do that?”

 

Looks like he can one hundred percent prove Lena wrong now.

 

He felt a dull feeling in his chest that urged his quiet tears out. Despite crying, bleeding, and having to be held like a whimpering three year old, he felt safe.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay, this was a chapter that I needed a short thing and then random crap to happen as a filler. Bastion's there so he can now infiltrate King's Row next chapter. Then they'll figure out what the heck's going on and if their theory is right, and then Blackwatch has to be mission impossible if there is someone building Omnics back there.
> 
> I legitimately don't know if I'll have someone doing that, because who would I make it? Meh, I'll figure that out later.
> 
> This went from "Okay, I need to progress," to "Crap, that only lasted like two paragraphs. I need fillers, WHERE'S THE CAKE?" "How about I make Genji be a lil asshole like I mentioned in the tags?" "Oh shit, now he's trying to kill him what the fuckleberry have I done," "Let's toss Hanzo in there, whatta good friendo," "Now Jesse is S A F E like my soul" Okay I'll stop now (I'm hyper all of a sudden, oops-)


	11. Chapter 11

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Two, technically three, more characters show up, though one won't stay for long until she comes back later. Bastion finds out what's been going on with the never ending wave of Omnics at King's Row and one more earth shattering secret.

Bastion had come and gone from Gibraltar. He had just successfully infiltrated into the back lines of the Omnics. Sombra had placed some tech on the Omnic that would allow her to see and hear what he did, talk to him through it to give directions (she had a map of the place up on her “screen”), and track his movements so he couldn’t possibly get lost. Getting there was the easy part. Slipping away unseen and unsuspected was the hard part.

 

“We can either wait until the group Bastion’s with moves back for resupply, which will be another hour at best, or we can try and get him through sooner, which is more dangerous.” Sombra says.

 

Winston’s voice is in the background of the comm link’s microphone “If they’re all controlled by a virus they may not realize what’s actually going on around them; their only goal to kill whoever is called their enemies.”

 

Sombra hums in agreement “That’s true.., we could definitely try leaving the back lines now.”

 

“But if we are wrong we may lose him..,” Winston points out, going into deep thought about their options.

 

Sombra hacks into any and all security cameras that are in the general area to try and get a better look at where Bastion will be heading no matter what they chose. There was an alarming amount of Omnics back there. There were the injured ones who were inoperable but managed to escape the battle field, there were the more humanoid ones, like Mondatta, who seemed to be engineers of sorts, trying to put the other Omnics back together so they could keep fighting. There weren’t too many cameras to hack into, so they were left mostly blind until Bastion himself goes through the area.

 

“If you go back now you might be thought of as one of the broken Omnics back there, and then be sent back afterwards. We can’t do anything except wait until the others around you go back as well.” Sombra taps her fingernails on the table beside her, she wasn’t always the most patient person.

 

A long wait later and the little troop Bastion had been placed in started to finally go back inside, allowing them to move on with their mission. Bastion made a few chirping noises as he went in, seemingly unsure of the place.

 

“Alright Bastion,” Sombra says while looking at the holographic map before her “I’ve got two thoughts here, and you’ll have to make the choice. Either this is how the Omnics keep seemingly coming out stronger; because of the engineers constantly buffing them with new robotics, or our idea is still valid and someone or something is deeper within making more of these bastards.”

 

“You have to decide whether to keep going to check out if we were right, or if you want to call it quits because you think this is why.” Jack’s voice is in the background of the comm link now “We know you don’t exactly feel safe there, and this could very well be where the problem is.”

 

Bastion seemed to think that over. It was pretty much be brave and see if there was anything else out there or chicken out and leave now, leaving the Overwatch agents to possibly deal with a huge, previously unknown threat. Hmm.

 

The Omnic goes down one of the halls on the left to get away from where the engineers seemed to be cluttered with the injured Omnics. “Alright, I believe this building used to be one of those big, fancy hotels.” Sombra informs, “That previous room had probably been the reception room. Down this hall are a whole bunch of doors, each room looking to have another door to a separated bedroom. Further down the hall is what was the dining and kitchen area for those free breakfasts or whatever.”

 

“What exactly is he looking for?” Winston asks, mostly to himself.

 

Sombra falters before she grumbles “You’ll have to look through every room it looks like.” So Bastion did just that. The first door, to his left, creaked open. He slowly pushed it open, raising his gun hand just in case, but found the room to be empty. Same with the other half of the room. This was the same for the entire hall until he reached the dining area. There was voices coming from further inside. “Hide behind the corner, we can hear them and they don’t know you’re there.”

 

“-you mean? This is the perfect plan!” A gruff voice says.

 

“Our definitions of “perfect” must be very different.” A more feminine voice replies, sounding annoyed.

 

“I got us in here didn’t I? We’re fine.”

 

“It’s a god send that I actually know how to use my weapon, unlike you.” The other argues back.

 

“I think they’re against the Omnics and are doing something similar to us.” Sombra says “But..,who? Bastion go around the corner, I think I recognize one of those voices.”

 

Bastion’s clunky feet echo as he steps away from and around the wall, startling the other two in the room, both their weapons drawing up towards the Omnic “See! I told you this wouldn’t work! Not with your plan anyways.” The feminine voice hisses.

 

“Stay back, we won’t shoot you if you stay back.”

 

“I was right, the voice I recognized is Satya. She’s a leading engineer in league with Vishkar. Hacked into their database once and met her. She’s helping build a world changing technology, so I don’t know why she’s here of all places. Unless..,” Sombra trails off.

 

Bastion whirs as his head turns back and forth between the two potential threats, a slightly distressed beeping noise emanating from him. He didn’t know how to show he wasn’t one of the Omnics with the virus. If he advanced they’d attack, if he stayed put they’d remain as they were, and if he left they’d be on lookout for him and probably attack if they saw him again, taking it as a hostile message. So he stood in place waiting for either Sombra, Winston, or Jack to come up with a plan to deal with the unexpected visitors.

 

“Bastion, can you get closer? I can speak to them through your comm link if you set it to the right mode, but it’s quiet for stealth reasons, so you’ll have to be closer for them to hear me.” Bastion beeps in reply as he changes the receiving mode for the comm’s mic, it making a loud “blip” noise. The other two’s previously relaxing positions tensed back up like when he had first walked around the corner.

 

Bastion takes a step forwards, the unknown person raising their weapon properly and repeating what they had said earlier “Stay back or we will attack you.” Bastion makes whirring noises as he takes another step successfully without being shot at.

 

Sombra tries yelling as loud as she can, hoping the two across the room would be able to hear her “Hello? Can anyone hear me?”

 

“What was that?” Satya questions as she hears a faint voice seemingly in the background. 

 

“Bastion, forwards again.” Sombra says, surer of her plan now that they could hear her voice, though not her words.

 

Bastion takes a few steps forwards as if he weren’t walking towards two guns aimed at him. Sombra tries again saying “Hello?”

 

“S-Sombra?” Satya says, disbelief very evident.

 

“Hold fire, this bot’s with me!”

 

Satya lowers her gun, which makes the other lower theirs as well. “Why’ve you got an Omnic running around for you?”

 

“Well, Overwatch noticed how quickly Omnics are coming back from being injured while they try to keep them out of King’s Row. I happened to know an Omnic who wasn’t already busy with holding off other Omnics who could help us see what’s going on.” Sombra summarizes for her “Why are you here and who’s that?”

 

“Oh, her? That’s Aleksandra, she’s being my bodyguard for now after crossing paths in this havoc.”

 

“I think there’s someone behind all this. Someone building more Omnics or something like that. Bastion here is infiltrating to see if I’m right or not.”

 

“We’ll tag along since we’ve managed to trap ourselves anyways.” Satya says bitterly at the last part.”

 

-

 

The trio sneak their way to the top floor. The staircase was in the middle, so they arrived in the center of what should have been a hall. All the rooms’s walls on this floor were gone, a wide, empty space instead. The only thing up there was a huge machine that looked like a screen, similar to Winston’s in his office there at Gibraltar.

 

Satya approaches it hesitantly, Bastion half a step behind her. She scans the screen “It’s a roster.” She says, reading over the names on it “It’s like your gimmick, Sombra. It lists the different, but major organizations, their members, and almost everything about them.”

 

“Wai- What?” Jack’s voice says from behind Sombra. “What’s listed that’s of importance to us?”

 

“There’s Vishkar and Overwatch up there, there’s also strangely enough that Shimada clan two of your people are from and Deadlock’s up there too. There’s a few others but the biggest of those is called Talon.”

 

“What does it say on our agents?” Winston says as worry and borderline panic creeps into his voice. This wasn’t good at all.

 

“The newest entry for Overwatch says “Mako Rutledge” being listed as a new member, the name “Jamison Fawkes” at the same time. They with you?”

 

“They joined three days ago when I came here to help out with this mission.” Sombra says as she busies herself with trying to hack into the screens in front of Bastion to try and take as much of that information off of it and wipe it like a clean slate.

 

“Above that in order of their recruitment is; Jesse McCree, Mei-Ling Zhou, Hanzo and Genji Shimada, etc.”

 

Sombra looks at Winston who already knows her question, nodding his head “That’s the order they’ve all been recruited in. How do they know this?”

 

“Athena, has there been any security breaches to explain this?” Winston asks the AI.

 

There was a moment of silence before Athena’s scan was complete and she spoke “The scan shows no problems. Nothing detectable.”

 

“Who ever got this information is a bigger threat than we could have ever imagined.” Jack says to himself, his face shadowed in thought.

 

“Sombra, can you get in?” Satya asks hopefully. It not only had information on Overwatch but her own organization, so she ought to be worried too.

 

“No.” The thought to be unbeatable hacker concludes. “Whatever tech, systems, protection they used is unknown to me, too advanced for even my own tech and skills.”

 

“That’s no good.” Satya murmurs as she looks up and down the Overwatch agent roster in disbelief.

 

“Look! Over here!” Aleksandra calls to the other two, motioning them to look out the window she was at. She points down at where Overwatch had set up their defenses to keep the Omnics out of King’s Row. They had been pushed back considerably and they all seemed to be in a panicked frenzy.

 

A beam of smoke goes past the window, seemingly flashing red for a mere moment. It made contact with one of the soldiers on the ground, and she dropped dead not a moment later. That would probably be why things didn’t look to great down there.

 

Sombra had seen it through Bastion’s eyes “You three get out of there, Bastion take them back with you to HQ, we need all the help we can get.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Took me a bit to come up with an idea for it, but now I've got Talon in here too, which is going to help propel this train wreck further into oblivion!


	12. Chapter 12

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> All this is is talking about who's going where when they get to King's Row.....

Everyone had been herded into Winston’s office as soon as Bastion and two others Jesse didn’t know had come back. Jack was the first to speak, and sounded on the verge of self combusting as he said “We need to get out to King’s Row right now.” This was the most serious he’d ever heard the commander be.

 

“No, that’s suicide.” Winston says, sounding calmer than he was as he continued to tell what Bastion had seen “Bastion here found out not one but two problems. The first is they have a huge assortment of Omnic engineers that have been fixing and buffing the broken and dead Omnics, essentially making most of them zombies of who they used to be by now.”

 

“The second is at the very top floor of the building there was a screen connected to the biggest piece of tech I’ve ever seen. On the screen was a roster of every organization, big and small, and with each organization was a roster with almost all information someone could need on every single member. Sombra tried to hack into it, take it off, and wipe it clean, but it’s some kind of newer tech we’ve not heard of. There was also, if I recall, laser beams coming from the roof? Whatever that was was taking down one of our own every time it shot, but it took about a minute before it shot again. I agree with Jack, we need to do something as quickly as possible, but we need a plan first.”

 

A chill ran through Jesse at the thought of his first mission being the mission that could cost them their lives, the war, and the world.

 

“Sombra, bring up that holographic map you were using of the place.” Winston says “We can start with that.”

 

Sombra points out where the Overwatch soldier’s were. They had been pushed back to the final area where if they let a few Omnics slip past the rest would trample them to the ground. The Omnics had more room to move around and dodge compared to the struggling soldiers. One of those laser beams shoots down, sounding like thunder as someone falls off a building, presumably dead, and onto the Omnic’s side.

 

“We need to split up, if we all go where the soldiers are it won’t help much.” Jack says after the laser’s smoke had disappeared. “Is there any visuals up there? To see where it’s coming from?”

 

“I’ve tried to find some, but there isn’t.” Sombra says as she switches between different views of the place.

 

“When we get there I can zip up there mighty quick and find out what’s up there.” Lena offers, for once without her giddiness.

 

“Alright, that’s a start. We need someone to counter whoever or whatever’s doing that too, if that’s even possible.” Winston adds in, looking to Reinhardt.

 

“Don’t worry my friends, I can do that!” His cheery voice seemed out of place in the room but was welcomed, making the mood slightly lighter.

 

“That means Rein will be with the soldiers at the blockade, correct? Who else will be at the blockade?” Ana says, keeping the plan rolling.

 

“Torbjörn, Bastion and I can stay within the blockade,” Winston says “Reinhardt will be on the side where the lasers are coming from to block them with his shield. We will need someone else up there with him and perhaps on the other side.”

 

“Snipers sound like the best choice there,” Jack says “but we need Ana off the blockade.”

 

“Hanzo can keep Omnics off of Reinhardt then.” Winston concludes.

 

“What will I do then?” Ana asks, slightly confused.

 

Jack responds “Angela will be down there in the blockade and around it within the walls to heal them, which spares you to help with the rest not on the blockade. Who’s left? You, Mei, Jamison, Mako, myself, Blackwatch, and then Lena when she comes back from whatever the laser is.”

 

“Should Aleksandra and I help too?” Satya says “I might not be much help, but Aleksandra here is stronger than any metal ever could be.”

 

“Aleksandra can be in the blockade, and you, Satya, can be off the blockade.” Winston thinks another moment before he speaks again “Now we need to figure out what everyone else is doing.”

 

“Blackwatch will get inside the building with those rosters you mentioned. Since we can’t delete it, we’ll destroy it ourselves.” Gabriel’s voice is almost a growl.

 

“Should we, uh, have those two together with something like this?” Jack points out, seeming to wince a little as he looks between Genji and Jesse.

 

“If they don’t cooperate they’re Omnic food, and that’s that. If they’re reliable at all they’ll know that and nothing will happen.” Gabriel says in a challenging tone of voice.

 

“Hey, hey, everyone calm down.” Ana says as she stands up, sensing the argument before it started. “If Blackwatch is going inside what do the rest of us do?”

 

“We can stay as one group and try and flank them from the right side and behind, or split up into two groups and have them flank from different sides. The flanking will divide the Omnic’s attention, making it harder for them. But if we split into two one group won’t have a medic at all.” Jack proposes.

 

“It would be smarter to go as one, I think.” Mei’s quiet voice pipes up. “There would be a lot of us trying to flank them so they’d have to put a lot of attention on us, and if they don’t then they’re going to be shot at.”

 

“Good thinking,” Winston says before turning to Sombra “What about you? Are you going to stay here to monitor the cameras or do you want to go with everyone else?”

 

“I’ll keep watch here and inform if anything major changes that you haven’t seen yet.”

 

“Alright, let’s head out as quickly as possible. Get your gear and get on the planes.” Jack dismisses, everyone standing a moment later.

 

“Hey, Jesse!” Lena says as she seems to materialize out of thin air beside him “What do you think that laser is? Maybe it’s aliens!”

 

“Lena, if you’re going to find out what it is take it seriously.” Jack scolds her from further down the hall, not even turning around.

 

“Aww, you’re no fun, Jack. Be seeing you at the planes, ‘luv!”


End file.
